Peter Hulme Books

The crisis in literary criticism today has its roots in the political and cultural developments of the post-war period, and particularly in the aftermath of '1968'. During the 1970s and 1980s the annual Sociology of Literature conferences at the University of Essex provided a major international forum for contention and debate in the rapidly expanding field of theory and criticism on the left.Essential reading for all those concerned with this crisis, Literature, Politics and Theory gathers together in one volume a selection of papers from the Essex Conferences chosen to illustrate the depth and range of the historical and critical engagements of those years and, as the title suggests, to represent the politics both of the issues addressed and of the debates themselves.A number of the essays have been given new introductions by their authors, reflecting on the original context of their delivery and on their continuing significance. The volume as a whole begins with an introductory essay by the editors on the project of the Conferences.The editors are all at the University of Essex.

The issues of colonialism and imperialism have recently come to the forefront of thinking in the humanities. Disciplines such as history, literature and anthropology are taking stock of their extensive and usually unacknowledged legacy of Empire. At the same time, contemporary cultural theory has had to respond to post-colonial pressure, with its different registers and agendas. This volume ranges, geographically, from Brazil to India and South Africa, from the Andes to the Caribbean and the USA. This range is matched by a breadth of historical perspectives. Central to the whole volume is a critique of the very idea of the "postcolonial" itself. Contributors include Annie Coombes, Simon During, Peter Hulme, Neil Lazarus, David Lloyd, Anne McClintock, Zita Nunes, Benita Parry, Graham Pechey, Mary Louise Pratt, Renato Rosaldo and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.